Direct Mail
Smart direct mail.
More personal, targeted, and connected.
Today’s direct mail can be targeted, personalized and connected to digital campaigns.
Direct mail has changed. It is not printing the same postcard 5,000 times, dropping it in the mail and hoping for the best.
You can change the message or image based on who’s receiving it, use QR codes to drive people online and track eligible mail as it moves through the postal system.
Of course, someone still has to make all of that work.
That’s where GISI comes in. We help with the parts people see, like design and printing, and a whole lot of things they don’t, like cleaning mailing lists, managing variable data, navigating postal requirements and getting everything where it needs to go.
What is direct mail?
Direct mail is printed marketing or informational material sent through the United States Postal Service to a specific audience. That might be a postcard, letter, newsletter, catalog, invitation or another printed piece.
Businesses and organizations use direct mail for all kinds of reasons: marketing campaigns, fundraising, customer communications, surveys, public notices and more. Direct mail starts with knowing who should receive it.
You might be trying to reach current customers, donors, people in a certain geographic area or a very specific group of prospective customers. Sometimes clients already have that list. Other times, we build and provide a custom list.
What makes a good direct mail campaign?
A good direct mail campaign starts with the right audience and a clear reason for reaching them. From there, the mailing list, message, design, personalization and postal preparation all have to work together.
One of the least exciting parts of direct mail is also one of the most important: the list. We clean up duplicate records, standardize addresses and identify addresses that may not be deliverable. We also process applicable lists through the National Change of Address database, or NCOA, which uses change-of-address information provided to the United States Postal Service to help identify people who have moved.
It’s very behind-the-scenes work, but we’d rather find a bad address before you pay to print and mail something to it. The same goes for the mailpiece itself. The Postal Service has specific requirements about things like size, layout and addressing. It’s much easier to account for those details while we’re planning the piece than discover a problem after everything has been designed.
Can direct mail be personalized?
Yes. Direct mail can be personalized with different names, messages, images, offers, QR codes and other content based on information in your mailing data.
This is where direct mail gets really fun. The technology behind it is called variable data printing, or VDP. It connects information in a spreadsheet or database to different elements within a design. Putting someone’s first name on a letter is a simple example. But that’s only the beginning.
Say you’re running the same campaign in Oregon, Hawaii and South Dakota. The Oregon version might feature forests and rivers. Hawaii could feature a surfer. South Dakota could feature Mount Rushmore. You haven’t created three completely separate campaigns. We’ve built rules into the artwork that tell the system which version each recipient should get.
Messages, photographs, offers, logos, languages and QR codes can all potentially change this way. The trick isn’t personalizing everything simply because we can. It’s figuring out where personalization actually makes the communication more relevant.
How can you save money on direct mail?
Start with good data and think about postal requirements before the design is finished. The size and shape of the piece, mailing class, address quality and the way a mailing is prepared can all affect cost.
This is an area where talking to us early can save some headaches. A creative idea may look great on screen but create an issue when it’s time to mail. Sometimes the solution is a small adjustment to the dimensions, mailing panel or artwork. We’d much rather catch that while we’re working on the project than at the finish line.
For some qualifying mailings, generally having at least 200 pieces of mail can open the door to USPS Marketing Mail rates. Nonprofit organizations may also qualify for special nonprofit mailing rates.
GISI handles the less-visible parts of that process too, including list preparation, postal documentation and delivery to the appropriate Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU), where many commercial mailings are verified and accepted. There are a lot of rules involved. You don’t need to know them all. We do. The takeaway: don’t wait until your piece is printed to think about postage. The mailing list, design, format and postal preparation can all affect what you ultimately spend.
Can you track direct mail?
Yes. Eligible direct mail can use an Intelligent Mail barcode to provide information about how mail moves through the postal system. Direct mail can also use QR codes and other tools to connect a printed piece with measurable digital activity.
An Intelligent Mail barcode, or IMB, is the barcode you’ll see on many commercial mailpieces. The United States Postal Service uses it to identify, sort and process mail. GISI can also offer Track & Trace options using Intelligent Mail barcode information to give clients more visibility into delivery.
Then there’s the digital side. A QR code on a postcard might take someone to a landing page, registration form, special offer or product page. Different audiences can even receive different QR codes. So we don’t really look at this as a print-versus-digital conversation.
A printed piece can be one part of a larger campaign. Someone gets a postcard, scans a QR code, visits a landing page and continues the experience online. Print started the conversation. Digital keeps it going.
What can GISI handle?
GISI can manage a direct mail campaign from mailing-list preparation and design through printing, postal preparation and delivery. Or we can step in for only the steps you need.
That’s important because clients come to us at very different stages. You might already have finished artwork and a mailing list and simply need someone to get it produced and mailed.
You might have the list but need help creating the piece. Or you might come to us and say, “We need to reach these people, and we have an idea.” That’s enough to start a conversation.
Depending on the project, we can help with audience data, design, list preparation, variable data and personalization, printing, addressing, postal requirements, sorting, delivery and tracking. Having all of those capabilities under one roof means fewer handoffs and fewer opportunities for something to get lost between vendors.
Do I need a mailing list before I call GISI?
No. You don’t need to have a finished mailing list or a completely developed campaign before talking with GISI.
Many clients bring us their own customer, donor, member or prospect lists. If you don’t have one, we can work with data partners to help identify an audience based on what you’re trying to accomplish.
We’d rather start with two questions:
Who are you trying to reach?
What do you want them to do?
Once we know that, we can work backward into the right list, format, message and production approach. We can help you reach the right audience with highly targeted mailing lists, using demographic and business data such as age, household income, homeownership, location, family status, interests, business type, company size, and key decision-makers, as well as specialty audiences like new homeowners, parents, or recent movers.
For example, a local landscaping company could target homeowners in specific ZIP codes whose homes were built more than 15 years ago, have larger lots, and who recently moved into the area.
Is direct mail still worth doing?
Direct mail is still a useful way to reach a specific audience, especially when good data, personalization and digital tools are used together.
Print isn’t trying to replace digital marketing, and digital marketing didn’t make print irrelevant. They do different things. There is still something powerful about putting a physical piece into someone’s hands. Now we can combine that with much of what marketers value about digital: better targeting, personalization, tracking and clear calls to action.
The result can be much smarter than the old “print a bunch and mail a bunch” approach. At GISI, we make sure the list is right, the piece works, the postal details are handled, the message gets where it’s supposed to go and the whole thing feels like your brand when it arrives.
Thinking about a direct mail campaign?
Bring us in early, even if all you have is the idea.
We will help you figure out what happens next.
Let‘s start a project.
Questions? Know exactly what you need? Somewhere in between?
Use this form and we’ll respond to you within 2 business hours!
Or call us at 503.598.0636. We’d love to hear from you.